Angel on her shoulder

In 1941 Massachusetts, years after losing her childhood friend, Dorothy 'Dotty' Reid, Katherine 'Kitty' Stewart still writes to her.

What begins as a private diary becomes a record of a young student nurse finding her place in the world as America edges ever closer to war. Alongside her fellow student nurses, Mary MacSwain and Eileen Fenton, Kitty faces the challenges of hospital life, the strict discipline of training, and the excitement and uncertainty of adulthood.

Across the Atlantic, the war is already part of her family's story. Her Father's sister Agnes McDowell in Scotland live under blackout and rationing, while her Uncle Roy McDowell serves with the British Merchant Navy. Yet in Massachusetts, many - like her socialite Aunt Diana Moore - still believe the fighting is an ocean away.

Her younger brother, Donald 'Donnie' Stewart, is content working as a mechanic until the peacetime draft changes the course of his life. As political tensions rise and newspaper headlines grow darker, Kitty finds herself caught between two worlds: one already at war, and one desperately hoping to avoid it.

Through friendship, laughter, heartbreak and quiet moments of hope, Kitty records the lives of ordinary people living through extraordinary times-never imagining how completely the world she knows is about to change.

A coming-of-age story of family, friendship and resilience set against the gathering storm of the Second World War.